Dissolving Titan

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Dissolving Titan

17 June 2015 Saturn’s moon Titan is home to seas and lakes filled with liquid hydrocarbons, but what makes the depressions they lie in? A new study suggests that the moon’s surface dissolves in a similar process that creates sinkholes on Earth.

Apart from Earth, Titan is the only body in the Solar System known to possess surface lakes and seas, as seen by the international Cassini mission. But at roughly –180°C, the surface of Titan is very cold and liquid methane and ethane, rather than water, dominate the ‘hydrological’ cycle.

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[+Hammerclaw]

Hal Clement would have loved Titan. It would have made a great setting for one his fanciful tales about life and worlds, not as we know them.

Edited June 18, 2015 by Hammerclaw